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Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel Kindle Edition
How does a budding cartel boss succeed (and survive) in the 300 billion illegal drug business? By learning from the best, of course. From creating brand value to fine-tuning customer service, the folks running cartels have been attentive students of the strategy and tactics used by corporations such as Walmart, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola.
And what can government learn to combat this scourge? By analyzing the cartels as companies, law enforcers might better understand how they work -- and stop throwing away 100 billion a year in a futile effort to win the "war" against this global, highly organized business.
Your intrepid guide to the most exotic and brutal industry on earth is Tom Wainwright. Picking his way through Andean cocaine fields, Central American prisons, Colorado pot shops, and the online drug dens of the Dark Web, Wainwright provides a fresh, innovative look into the drug trade and its 250 million customers.
The cast of characters includes "Bin Laden," the Bolivian coca guide; Old Lin," the Salvadoran gang leader; "Starboy," the millionaire New Zealand pill maker; and a cozy Mexican grandmother who cooks blueberry pancakes while plotting murder. Along with presidents, cops, and teenage hitmen, they explain such matters as the business purpose for head-to-toe tattoos, how gangs decide whether to compete or collude, and why cartels care a surprising amount about corporate social responsibility.
More than just an investigation of how drug cartels do business, Narconomics is also a blueprint for how to defeat them.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPublicAffairs
- Publication dateFebruary 23, 2016
- File size12077 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Review
"Tom Wainwright has powerfully argued in favor of legalizing drugs. He says that the policies aimed at stifling the drug trade seem to be misdirected and have failed... a controversial but well-argued book... a must-read for everyone interested in solving the drug issue. Wainwright makes a lot of sense at a time when the world seems helpless against drug traffickers."The Washington Book Review
[Wainwright's] book is courageous on several levels [he] challenges everyone at oncethe dealers, the drug czars, and the bystanders in between. A daring work of investigative journalism and a well-reasoned argument for smarter drug policies.Kirkus Reviews
Readers interested in the intersection of crime, economics, entrepreneurship, and law enforcement will find this work fascinating.Library Journal
Tom Wainwright of the Economist brings a fine and balanced analytical mind to some very good research Minneapolis Star Tribune
A lively and engaging book, informed by both dogged reporting and gleanings from academic research...Wall Street Journal
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : B017QL8XKE
- Publisher : PublicAffairs (February 23, 2016)
- Publication date : February 23, 2016
- Language : English
- File size : 12077 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 288 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #139,080 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book engaging, fun, and easy to read. They appreciate the great insights and research into how different businesses are run. Readers also praise the writing style as well-written, easy to understand, and well-thought-out.
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Customers find the book engaging, fun, and easy to read. They say it's interesting and educational for anyone interested in the drug culture. Readers also mention the book is leavened with lively anecdotes and colorful characters.
"...The book is also leavened with lively anecdotes and colourful characters...." Read more
"...NARCONOMICS was fantastic - really interesting and enjoyable. It was my go-to summer audiobook! The narrator was excellent, by the way...." Read more
"...A solid and engaging book, broken out into digestible chapters that focus on different components of the drug trade - production, HR, the impact of..." Read more
"An enjoyable read and I learned a few concepts along the way...." Read more
Customers find the book well-written and researched. They say it's a welcome groundwork for any informed opinion on the matter of drug crime. Readers also mention the book is filled with more facts, figures, and research than expected. They find the descriptions interesting and the rational examination of how drug cartels operate.
"Very interesting insight into how drug cartels operate...." Read more
"...A lot of them I drop after chapter 2 and move on.NARCONOMICS was fantastic - really interesting and enjoyable...." Read more
"Just got the book today and already 140 pages in. Simply fascinating stories of drug lords, cartels, smugglers and the issues they encounter...." Read more
"...This extremely well written and researched book gives me a set of arguments to present to our state representatives...." Read more
Customers find the writing style of the book extremely well-written and easy to read. They also say the problems are interesting and well-thought-out. Readers also mention the narrator is excellent and the author is brave.
"...It was my go-to summer audiobook! The narrator was excellent, by the way. And I literally had some laugh out loud moments...." Read more
"...Very engaging, well written, and has pictures too." Read more
"...This extremely well written and researched book gives me a set of arguments to present to our state representatives...." Read more
"...The statistics regarding the problem are interesting and well thought out...." Read more
Reviews with images
Solid Book But You Won't Launch A Drug Cartel Anytime Soon
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Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2017
As one example of how the value drug seizures are falsely estimated by officials, Wainwright cites a Mexico City marijuana haul which US newspapers reported was worth over half-a-billion US dollars. The actual value, says Wainwright, was probably more like US$10 million. That’s because all drugs have to be processed before being sold, so using the street value for crops destroyed, Wainwright points out, is like estimating the value of a steer based on the cost of a steak in a restaurant.
Throughout the book’s ten chapters, Wainwright applies economic concepts like monopolies and labour supply to show how the drug trade works. He deals not only with staples like marijuana and cocaine, but also designer drugs created in laboratories and discusses how the Internet has affected the trade in illegal narcotics.
Applying business models, Wainwright explains that “Cartels play a role more like that of large supermarkets, buying produce from farmers, processing and packaging it, then selling it to consumers.”
The book is also leavened with lively anecdotes and colourful characters. Wainwright writes that “Straightforward ineptitude is frequently the cause of drug traffickers’ downfall, according to the Home Office researchers, who noted that the ‘soap opera lifestyles’ of dealers and their associates were often what caused them to be caught,” In one such case, a courier who had to hand over $US500,000 in cash decided to put the bills on a bed and have sex with his 17-year-old outside woman, taking selfies while doing so. When the girlfriend showed the pics to the driver’s wife, the wife became so enraged that she tipped off the police about him.
Much of the book is devoted to showing why existing anti-trafficking polices aren’t working. For instance, Wainwright explains that
destroying crops doesn’t raise the prices that wholesale farmers charge to cartels, because the armed groups that control the cocaine trade in Colombia act as monopsonies. That means that one group has a monopoly in specific regions, like cable companies in Trinidad and Tobago until recently. All that destroying crops does is make poor farmers poorer, says Wainwright, while the cartels’ profits remain the same.
Moreover, he cites figures showing that, from coca leaf to cocaine powder, the mark-up is more than 30,000 percent. Put another way, even if destroying crops tripled the farmer’s price, the retail price in the United States would rise less than one percent.
“This does not seem like a good return on the billions of dollars invested in disrupting the supply of leaves in the Andes,” Wainwright dryly remarks.
The final chapter is titled, with seeming egoism, “Why Economists Make the Best Police Officers.” But Wainwright’s book proves his core point as to why an economics approach rather than an ideological one will do most to reduce the ill effects of drug trafficking.
Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2022
Reviewed in the United States on July 16, 2017
NARCONOMICS was fantastic - really interesting and enjoyable. It was my go-to summer audiobook! The narrator was excellent, by the way. And I literally had some laugh out loud moments. The author is good as Steven Johnson, by favorite current non fiction author, and that's a high standard. Readers who enjoy this book may enjoy Steven Johnson (though he writes about technology & society not business per se) and the recent book Brand Luther, taking an economist's/marketer's/business strategist's view of the Reformation.
Here was a laugh out loud moment for me, and let me say, I am here improvising the quotation that I heard last week as audio, so it's not a literal quote. "Wainwright writes that on the Dark Net, he gets rapid customer-centric feedback from anonymous encrypted messaging. "Even when I was deliberately trying to annoy, as when I messaged an online crack pipe dealer Violent86 whether he could engrave a friend's name on a gift pipe. Within a few hours, he politely emailed back that he couldn't, but he wished me luck in finding a vender that could."
Reviewed in the United States on September 19, 2022
A solid and engaging book, broken out into digestible chapters that focus on different components of the drug trade - production, HR, the impact of the Internet, and the looming specter of US legalization efforts - the author keeps things moving while offering insightful vignettes from the very real people involved, across the public and private sectors, albeit with relatively few insights from drug lords themselves.
If you liked Clear and Present Danger, this’ll be right up your alley!
Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2023
Page 208 describes in detail how the cartel create heroin in the mountains of the Sierra Madre.
And Chapter 7: Innovating Ahead of the Law -- favorite chapter in the book highlighting the regulatory experiment in New Zealand.
I do recommend reading the Conclusion (Why Economist Make the Best Police Officers) on Page 239 *first* before reading Chapter 1 and onward.
Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2023
Page 208 describes in detail how the cartel create heroin in the mountains of the Sierra Madre.
And Chapter 7: Innovating Ahead of the Law -- favorite chapter in the book highlighting the regulatory experiment in New Zealand.
I do recommend reading the Conclusion (Why Economist Make the Best Police Officers) on Page 239 *first* before reading Chapter 1 and onward.
Reviewed in the United States on November 20, 2023
Top reviews from other countries
5.0 out of 5 stars Bueno
Reviewed in Mexico on August 27, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely fabulous read!
Reviewed in India on March 1, 2023
Pick this up, I highly recommend it. Thank me later.
5.0 out of 5 stars Livro fantástico
Reviewed in Brazil on May 18, 2020
Quanto ao livro, conteúdo sensacional. A análise investigativa e as comparações do tráfico com práticas de indústrias é muito interessante e gera reflexões.
Recomendo para qualquer um que tem interesse em políticas públicas, econômica ou até mesmo jornalismo investigativo.
5.0 out of 5 stars Bel libro.
Reviewed in Italy on March 25, 2020
5.0 out of 5 stars The 21st Century Narcotics edition of 'The Prince'.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 23, 2017
I should mention that this review is incredibly premature - one is preparing to proceed on to chapter five - but I felt it merited plaudits.
Having a loose interest in economics, this is a fascinating read about the logistics of the drug trade - all the way from production, to the consumer - applied with economics, and amazingly, it all makes sense! With some brilliant stories, I find myself laughing at times, but also sympathetic towards the victims of this horrible industry of crime. Wainwright's style of writing in this book is very easy to read and - thus far - been a good introduction to economics, with easy-to-digest esoteric. With specific events Wainwright examines, I find myself - rather strangely, possibly anxiously - questioning if the drugs trade is such a bad thing.
In a way, I find it interchangeable with Machiavelli's 'The Prince', and having loved that piece of political satire, I can't see myself going back on my untimely judgement. Perhaps 'El Jefe' would be a more apt title for the book. Give it a read, at least until chapter five!
Now please excuse me... My coffee is finished brewing, and my afternoon spliff awaits!



